This is a tale of two lakes. Intertwined lakes, in Barry County, Michigan. Where somehow the water has gone away. Upper and Lower Crooked Lakes, both near and dear to me, are suffering from the lowest water levels I’ve seen in the almost 40 years I’ve been fishing them. Video at the end.
Trying to get to the bottom of this issue has been time-consuming involving road trips, phone calls to the Michigan DNR Fisheries in Plainwell, multiple Prairieville Township persons and the Barry County Drain Commissioner, along with attending the Prairieville Township Parks board meeting Monday, March 23, 2026.
The short story is drought in Barry County for the past couple years. At least in the area of Upper and Lower Crooked Lakes. Drain Commissioner Jim Dull says the groundwater table in the area is down 3.5 feet. He points out that Upper Crooked Lake actually drains into Lower Crooked Lake (through a weir on Parker Road) and then water filters through the sandy bottom of Lower Crooked Lake back into the ground. There are no inlets or outlets to these two lakes and Mother Nature is not returning enough water to replace the loss.
They have installed the boards in the weir on Lower Crooked to minimize the water transfer. Right now, Upper Crooked is 3 inches higher, so water is still draining into Lower Crooked from Upper through the weir. They check the water levels on both lakes once a week. Right now the lakes are at 922.75 feet. I have talked to multiple locals who all say the lakes have been much lower even. Most say that was in the 1990s. Not sure why I don’t recall that. I was fishing it starting in the late 1980s.
If you’ve been on Upper Crooked since last summer, you know two things: the water is very low, several feet down, and the ramp is a broken mess. The good news is supposedly the company they hired is going to show up by the end of March to begin repairs, that will take an unknown amount of time. There’s a flat bed with piles of cement ties on it parked in the parking lot, and 3 piles of large stones to gravel nearby. The materials are there, but no work has started yet. I asked the board how long the repair would take and they don’t know.
Meanwhile, the ramp gate is now up and the ramp is ‘open’ to again, launch at your own risk. There are very few trailer parking spots left right now and the ramp could close at any time for the repairs.
Lower Crooked was lower than I’d ever seen it last year in the 35+ years I’ve fished it as far as I can remember. This spring it is even worse with almost the entire concrete boat ramp out of the water! If you go there to launch, it is at your own risk and larger boats may not be floating off your trailer right now. Locals are telling me it was lower actually in the mid-90s, but I was fishing there then and I do not recall ever seeing water this low. I actually recall going into shallow waters in bass boats while right now there are bays that are almost dry, let alone not being able to float a bass boat.
If you remember, just a few years ago the water was so high on Upper Crooked Lake they canceled all the bass tournaments and spent something like $6 million to install 2 pumps to keep the lake from flooding a few low lying houses. In the end they say these pumps were never used to pump out under the road into the marsh holding pond on the other side. There is one other pump in a pumphouse off Delton Road that they haven’t turned on in some time according to the Drain Commissioner.
If you don’t know, the ramps Prairieville Township now controls at Gull Lake, the Crooked Lakes and Pine Lake all used to be MDNR ramps. Now the township charges $7 to $10 a launch to use them and they are responsible for maintaining them as well. Note that they raised the launch/park fee from $7 to $10 for this year at Lower Crooked. The MDNR says they cannot go higher by contract than they charge, which I think means $12, though of course, your $12 Recreation Passport you pay one time per year and then get in ALL the DNR ramps, while at the Prairieville Township ramps you pay every time you launch, or you can buy an annual pass for $80 resident or $90 nonresident. I don’t know if that will change this year.
Another note, new signs exist at the Lower and Crooked Lake ramps about the fees, rules, and there is a new sign at the Lower ramp that states no powerloading or you will be fined. The township board states they will be very strict at their lakes about powerloading. They are considering installing cameras to catch people doing so, and fine them based of the camera evidence though I don’t think they have made that decision yet.
At the Monday Parks board meeting I spoke briefly asking them to fix the two bad ruts that exist right now going down to the Lower Crooked boat ramp. I think they will be doing this though the Township Supervisor originally told me they would do no repairs at Lower because they believed no one will want to fish there once they learn about the fish kill.
Yes, there was a fairly fish kill on Lower Crooked visible from Parker Road. Talking the Plainwell office’s Michigan DNR fisheries biologist Matt Diana, he felt the fish kill was primarily tiny bluegills, which might actually help Lower Crooked from spiraling into a stunted bluegill population the DNR was concerned had started happening.
I drove to Parker Road before the Monday meeting and saw dead – two medium to large bass, a big carp and then probably several thousand tiny bluegills about the size of a half dollar. That was the majority of the dead fish still floating. I was told there were more bass and some pike visible a few days earlier. That’s possible, but what I saw was primarily young of the year panfish.
On Monday I also asked the Parks board if they would push the Lower Crooked Lake dock further into the lake. Right now it is only about a third in the water at the start of the old blow hole. I’m thinking they might expect water levels to rise yet? I first stopped at the ramp on Monday, March 16 and all of the concrete was out of the water.
This past Monday, about 6 inches of concrete was in the water. The rest of the concrete ramp is high and dry. I measured the depth of the hole at the end of the dock and it was maybe 22 inches, which will not float my big old Ranger bass boat. I don’t expect I will be able to launch there this year unless somehow magically the lake rises another foot. The pile at the end of the blow hole rises up shallow a short ways past the dock. Not sure if there is enough of a hole to float boats other than small aluminum. If you’re thinking of going there, you may want to make a test launch first to make sure you can get your boat off the trailer.
I asked if they could dredge a little at Lower Crooked out past the concrete, but I don’t think they will, and it’s possible they would need a permit anyway to do that. I’m not sure, but wouldn’t be surprised that they need an Inland Lakes and Stream permit to dredge any bottom materials at the ramp, if they were willing.
Other public access notes from the Monday Prairieville Township Parks board meeting include they have installed one dock so far at Gull Lake and plan to install the other dock soon. They say they have 65 bass tournaments scheduled at Gull Lake, 51 at Upper Crooked Lake, 35 at Pine Lake (though only 18 are going out of their ramp) and 1 at Lower Crooked Lake after enough event canceled.
They are also apparently going to build a new ramp at their Pine Lake Center Street boat launch though the first company has stiffed them the down payment and doing no work. They have to find a new company and fund it. I’m not sure how involved this project is or why they are doing it.
Lower Crooked Lake weir end with boards in place and water flowing in from Upper Crooked Lake, along with some of the dead fish, a carp and mostly small bluegills along the shore, Parker Road.
